At present aircraft pilots have difficulty obtaining pertinent weather information in-flight in a timely manner as would allow them to accurately detect a weather trend along the flight route and avoid inclement weather. As example, given weather information and weather maps at the airport prior to departure from, say, New York City, and the weather along the route and at the intended termination, say, Los Angeles, one anticipates that during a flight of many hours duration, the weather along the flight route and at the intended destination could change adversely. The pilot may learn of those weather changes in route by disjointed weather information sources, which provides incomplete weather information at best. As example, communication with ground crew, textual weather information sent by ACARS, only available to airlines and transports, and on-board weather radar.
More advanced aircraft are equipped with weather radar systems that allow view of oncoming weather over a range of one hundred and fifty miles or so, which gives the pilot some welcome, but limited, information. As example, by altering course to avoid a forthcoming storm front shown on the weather radar monitor in the aircraft's current path of flight, the pilot may find only too late that the new route selected takes his airplane into the path of an even larger storm two hundred miles away. The pilot might then gamble and retrace the flight to the original route or undertake another like guess. The lack of readily available up to date global information handicaps the pilot's situation awareness, makes re-routing decisions difficult and frustrating, and results in close encounters with adverse weather.
Encountering bad weather thus exacts a toll not only on the pilot, but also on the airline's passengers who may fear for their personal safety. It also drives up fuel costs, adversely affecting the airlines. As the pilot may re-route the craft too and fro on the basis of imprecise and limited information intending to avoid bad weather, extra fuel is consumed.
Inadequate weather dissemination capability of fixed weather stations has always been a concern to both government and the airlines. Inadequate and unreliable deployable weather equipment often fails to disseminate weather information quickly and effectively. Consequently, flight safety is adversely affected.
The concept of transmitting weather information to the cockpit by satellite has been discussed in various forums in the past several years and even appears in the patent literature. As example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,024, to Crabill et al, granted Nov. 23, 1993 describes a concept that is consistent with the present invention's philosophy of furnishing ground based weather information to aircraft in flight through the intermediary of a broadcast satellite. The patent describes the type of weather data in great detail, but does not describe the approach to technology implementation. The patent fails to identify the type of satellite, the broadcast data communication protocol, broadcast channel and data transmission rate, and does not describe how the airborne hardware integration with the SATCOM receiver is accomplished to support a high data transmission rate. The patent describes what the system is supposed to do, but it does not provide sufficient detail allow one to place the system into practice.
One also appreciates that at least one aircraft ground simulator, which helps to train pilots, includes presentation of weather maps. However, that is a simulation, and differs from actual practice in obtaining such kind of current weather information within an aircraft in flight. Such ground simulator offers another example of the strong existing desire to have current weather information available on maps on board aircraft on demand for the pilot and confidence that a practical implementation will soon be discovered.
Until the present invention, thus, no one transformed the concept to a reality and the concept remained a long sought after goal, awaiting the practical implementation, which the present invention provides. To attain that goal, the present invention takes advantage of the existing capabilities of today's aeronautical satellites, present SATCOM receivers, and computer chips and displays presently used with personal computers.
One practical impediment to implementation of a graphical weather display system is cost. If new components must be constructed, tested and developed over long periods to ensure reliability and airworthiness, the cost of the equipment is usually high and, importantly, its implementation encounters long delays.
Advantageously, the present invention makes use of components, equipment and services that are available essentially off-the-shelf. Implementation requires writing of few new software programs for graphics display and processing, which are seen as routine and uncomplicated. No long term development is necessary. It is appreciated that considerable savings are to be realized by using off-the-shelf hardware and software and the system may be rapidly implemented avoiding long delays.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention, is to provide an in cockpit graphical weather system that supplies relatively current weather information for in-flight pilot utilization.
And a further object of the invention is to provide a system for providing pilot's near real time in-flight weather information in graphical form constructed from commercial off-the-shelf systems.